Cynthia Lynch Shor and David Anthony Church were married Nov. 20. Cantor Zachary S. Konigsberg officiated at the Village Club of Sands Point, N.Y.
Ms. Shor, 71, is the executive director of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, which operates the site in Huntington, N.Y., where the poet was born, in 1819. She graduated from N.Y.U., received a master’s degree in literature from American University and was a doctoral candidate at what was then called the Steinhardt School of Teaching and Learning at N.Y.U. She is an emerita director of N.Y.U.’s alumni association for the colleges of arts, science and engineering.
She is a daughter of the late Gladys E. Lynch and the late Patrick Henry Lynch Jr., who lived in Des Moines. Her father retired as a plumber for Wolin Plumbing in Des Moines. Her mother retired as a licensed practical nurse at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines.
Dr. Church, 74, retired as the principal of Kingston High School in Kingston, N.Y., and is now a consultant in Greer, S.C., for charter schools, providing board training, leadership consultation, and also helping to establish new charter schools. He graduated from Long Island University, received a master’s degree in educational administration and business from Baruch College and received a doctoral degree in educational administration and policies from Hofstra University. He is also a director of the International Ballet in Greenville, S.C.
He is a son of the late Concetta Aulisio Delessio and the late Dominick Delessio, who lived in Brooklyn, and was raised by an aunt, the late Martha Delessio Church and her husband, the late Frank J. Church, also of Brooklyn. The groom’s father was a machinist at the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company in Brooklyn, and later in White Haven, Pa. The groom’s aunt worked with her husband at his printing and engraving business in Brooklyn.
The bride’s previous marriage ended in divorce, and the groom was a widower.
The couple met in June 2016, when Dr. Church stopped by the Walt Whitman Birthplace just a little after all the tour guides had left for the day and Ms. Shor offered to guide him through the site herself. Afterward, he asked her to have coffee with him, and when she agreed, he suggested that perhaps they should have dinner instead. “We ended up in a lovely Italian restaurant, we were the only customers there, tucked in a corner table, and we talked for two and a half hours,” Dr. Church said. “It was absolutely delightful.”
